The Taliban have confirmed they still hope to assassinate - TopicsExpress



          

The Taliban have confirmed they still hope to assassinate 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai. There’s no better reason to give her 2013′s Nobel Peace Prize. Malala is an extraordinary person. She had built up a reputation as a passionate advocate of education for every schoolchild ever since, when just 11 years old, she began blogging about life under the Taliban in Pakistan’s Swat valley. She is a visionary: someone deeply courageous who has been prepared to put her future on the line, speaking out against the Taliban’s backwards view of women’s rights in a part of the world on the frontline of the battle between extremism and moderation. Malala nearly paid for her beliefs with her life. While still just 15 years old she was shot in the head on October 9 last year, in a Taliban assassination attempt that very nearly succeeded. For a while it looked like she wouldn’t pull through. Thanks in part to the help of the staff of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, she survived. Her recovery led to her speech to United Nations Youth Assembly in July this year. Forget David Cameron, forget Barack Obama. This was the speech of the year so far. When she describes what happened after she was shot, the audience can’t help but applaud. ‘Weakness, fear and hopelessness died,’ she declared. ‘Strength, power and courage was born.’ She talks about her conviction with the same strength as Martin Luther King Jr and Nelson Mandela. Malala deserves to be talked about in the same breath. She has chosen not to be defeated by the Taliban – and insists that should she find herself face to face with her enemies with a gun in her hand, she would not pull the trigger. Women wait to receive fortified food supplements in Pakistan’s Swat Valley (Picture: Reuters) ‘This is what my soul is telling me. Be peaceful, and love everyone,’ she told delegates this summer. It’s the sort of line which, coming from the mouths of many politicians, would be written off as hippy claptrap. Not from Malala. Those words resonate when coming from her because they are the real deal. She is not like most people. Malala can say fundamental truths like ‘love everyone’ because her story – her beliefs, her whole life – are rooted in them. And now the Taliban are even more determined to kill her. A spokesman has been quoted saying ‘we will feel proud killing her’. Her battle is not yet over. The struggle against Islamic extremism is one of the biggest threats to global peace today. It is people like Malala who will make overcoming it possible. ‘I cannot believe how much love people have shown me,’ she declared in her astonishingly powerful speech to the UN. Now the Nobel Committee has the opportunity to show her some more – and highlight once again the story of a life whose central struggle should also be our own. Malala Yousafzai addressed a packed UN on July 12 – now designated ‘Malala Day’ (Picture: AP) Metro Blogs is a place for opinions. These opinions belong to the author and are not necessarily shared by Metro.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Oct 2013 13:47:43 +0000

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